Women's Open second round play abandoned as high winds cause havoc at Hoylake

The Ricoh Women’s British Open faces the prospect of a Monday finish after
60mph winds caused play to be abandoned on Friday as furious competitors
struggled to keep themselves upright and watched in horror as two-footers
suddenly became eight-footers in the space of a gust.

Mutiny was swirling in these brutal conditions until the organisers eventually saw sense and decided to declare all the scores of the 78 minutes played in the morning “null and void”.

That just about placated the women, although most of them were angry they had been told to start in the first place. The words “absolute farce” sprang to mind.

Karren Stupples called it “laughable”, while former world No1 Cristie Kerr said: “We should never have teed off.”

Kerr took four attempts to get a ball on the tee at the 12th and then was actually blown off her feet. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Michelle Wie, Kerr’s playing partner. “I almost went over just after Cristie.”

Forty-eight players began their rounds and the result was a predictable carnage. Nobody suffered more than England’s Felicity Johnson. She began with a quintuple bogey nine and then double-bogeyed the third.

Japan’s Erina Hara struck a beautiful iron to within two feet on the par-three 12th. By the time she reached the green it had blown eight feet away. And so it continued, with the 18 players who teed off on the front nine an accumulative 52-over. Blessedly, somebody then located the hooter.

Norway’s Suzann Pettersen, who played with Kerr and Hara, said on Twitter: “The sport we played this morning had nothing to do with golf. Right decision is made now.”

It was obvious what needed to be done, but the administrators took their time before wiping out all the scores.

“The competitors began their rounds in extremely adverse weather conditions and conditions subsequently worsened despite the belief that they would remain stable,” said Susan Simpson, the head of golf operations at the Ladies Golf Union. “It would have been unfair to those competitors not to declare play null and void and cancel all scores for the round in question.”

Simpson admitted the players were upset, but said they “were only about five or six on the Richter scale. We have to do what’s right for the event,” she said. The second round will begin today at 6.50am and, depending on how many players make the cut and, of course, the weather, they will try to get in 36 holes tomorrow.

Two Koreans in So Yeon Ryu and Haeji Kang hold the lead on two under after Thursday’s first round.